EDITOR'S OPINION

This particular voice compare will be for the Future Trunks we saw in the Cell Saga, as well as the adult version of Kid Trunks as seen in the GT timeline.

Oddly enough, his first English voice actually came out in 1997 with the rather obscure English release of Dragon Ball GT Final Bout for the PS1. Before they became a known force in Anime English dubs in the 2000s, Bandai had a small history of English versions of their games in the 90s--but they didn't exactly have a good reputation of it either and this game is no exception. Still, this dub of Final Bout was way better than the likes of that Kamen Rider game for the Sega CD, even though that might not be saying much.

Anyways, to finally get to the point, in this fairly old dub Skip Stellrecht voiced Trunks. What really made this an awkward miscast is when he pretty much slipped into his later "Might Guy" voice from Naruto. But to be fair, his Trunks voice did not always sound like that and it does get slightly better in those cases. Skip Stellrecht is a good VA but this isn't exactly the best example of his handiwork; though in all fairness it's not the worst in that game.

In the early 2000s when FUNimation got to the Cell Saga of the series, he was voiced by Eric Vale, and this is what made him into a bit of a fan favorite amongst FUNimation's fanbase. And to be honest it's rather understandable; Eric Vale's voice and performance for Trunks was rather fitting and it's still deemed to be some of his best work, which I can agree with.

In the EuroCanadian dub of DBZ he was voiced by Alistair Abell. Now, I am very much a fan of the Ocean Group and hold plenty of their VAs in high regard. But let's just say Alistair did not leave a good first impression to put it REALLY mildly. His voice and delivery seemed somewhat off--while not the worst voice acting I ever heard, it still raised an eyebrow. And while I am well aware that Kirby Morrow took over the role of Goku later on in the Cell Saga, I did (and in a way still do) feel that he would've been much more suiting for Trunks instead. But to be fair, while Alistair didn't get off to a good start he did improve over the course of the series. Once he really tried to make the role his own he did get better.

And last but not least is Matthew Erickson as Trunks in the Blue Water dub of DBGT. Unlike his Ocean Group counterpart, Matthew's handiwork felt rather natural right from the start. His voice and acting did fit the young, purple-haired Saiyan. Matthew Erickson's Trunks is easily one of the better performances in the Blue Water DBGT dub, but all things considered that does make sense.

Overall I am not quite who to prefer over Eric Vale and Matthew Erickson. I felt a bit iffy about Alistair Abell at first but he did grow on me. Skip Stellrecht might be a good choice for Trunks--if only his voice direction was a bit more consistent.

Eric Vale wins this one for me. Though he had the reverse Kid Trunks effect, and added rasp to his performance later on. Hopefully he tones it down in the Goku Black arc. Otherwise he's just as good as Takeshi Kusao.

Eric Vale, though his performance is the anomaly of being better in the Z dub than in Kai's dub: I really don't like how he got gruffer & raspier with it.

Alistair Abell gets a better clip than he really deserves considering how bad he sounded most of the time in the role: easily one of the worst Ocean dub voices, but that said, he's good in the clip (which makes sense, since this is from the character's final appearance in Z).

Skip Stellrecht as Trunks is literally a higher pitched version of his Might Guy voice from Naruto. Talk about a miscast...

Matthew Erickson sounds like a fusion of Eric Vale's take on Trunks and Sonny Strait's take on Krillin, so needless to say, I find it very awkward to listen to...

@SteelEthlan
The thing is Takeshi Kusao's Trunks voice is very smooth, so that's my issue with Vale's current portrayal: if he goes back to his older one with the Kai acting for Super's dub, then I'll have no issue with it, that being said. I agree the acting's better, but the voice itself I don't find nearly as fitting as the one he used initially.

Eric Vale is the least unfitting here. Possibly unflattering, but it'd be nice to get something lower out of him; I know they had NO Japanese audio to reference, & generally still pick "what we think this guy sounds like" over an accurate English version...

but it'd probably be pretty close if it were lower, & one of the most accurate castings in this unfortunately bass-ackwards dub.

A single clip can't really show it, but Doug Rand's Trunks is all over the place. He has about three different voices for him and sometimes it changes within a single movie. Most notably the Broly movie where he goes from sounding way too much like Broly to something more like the voice in this clip.

A shame too since if he stuck to developing one voice he would actually be pretty darn good.

Eric Vale is awesome as Trunks. He reminds me a bit of Kyle Reese from The Terminator and his voice has a bit of a gruff rasp that's similar to Christopher Sabat's Vegeta which is a neat little touch.

Alistair Abell wasn't the right person at Ocean to voice Trunks. Personally I feel it should have been Kirby Morrow but he ended up being Goku however I thought Abell was alright, a bit stiff but he did well I suppose.

Skip Stellrecht is pretty good, he wouldn't be my first choice at all for Trunks but his attitude and line delivery is really good.

Matthew Erickson is my least favourite and he sounds way too wimpy for Trunks, I know he isn't the cool Future Trunks but GT Trunks honestly sucked, I could see Matthew doing a less angrier version of his Shinn Asuka fitting really well for Trunks.

Eric Vale- In the original FUNimation Z dub, he was the best Trunks. I feel he had a really smooth, teenage voice for the character, and was by far one of the standouts from that dub, but for some reason, his voice has taken a downturn in Kai, and now sounds really gravelly as well as gruff. He's still my favorite, but I wish Eric would go back to his original voice for Trunks.

Alistair Abell- Started off awful in the Ocean/Westwood dub sounding more like a 1960's superhero stereotype, but by the end of his run, as the clip here shows, he was decent and tolerable.

Skip Stellrecht- Sounds like Might Guy from Naruto, really, meaning too old, but he has the right delivery and tone for the character.

Matt Erickson- Bad delivery and poor acting, but he could do better under better direction.

I'm just going to repost what I said in a YouTube voice compare on this character, rather than try and remember all my points.

"Eric Vale is and will always be the official voice of Trunks. It's really up to debate which version of his Trunks, between the original Z and Kai, is better, though. His performance in Kai, in terms of acting, is obviously the better of the two, due to more experience playing the character, better direction, and far better scriptwriting. However, his voice CAN be a tad too rough at times in Kai, whereas it sounds a bit more natural to speak with in the original. Personally, though, the better direction and writing of Kai make that the performance I'd pick.

If I had to pick ANYONE at all to replace him, it'd obviously be Scott Frerichs, AKA KaiserNeko, the voice of Trunks in DBZ Abridged. Due to Trunks usually being portrayed as kind of a "straight man" to the rest of the cast's constant comedic antics in DBZA, his performance is by far the easiest to compare to the official one. KaiserNeko does Trunks equally as good as Vale does in pretty much all respects, and he generally combines the best of both worlds when it comes to the things I mentioned about Vale's two performances. His voice isn't as rough as Vale's well-acted but gruff Kai interpretation, and he can act his little heart out due to being able to personally edit the lipflaps however he chooses to best fit his lines (many of which he wrote himself anyway), rather than having to act around them like the official actors do.

Trunks' Japanese voice actor is one of the best in the show as well, be it in the original Z or in Kai. Overall, a great character with great actors performing him. While the other VAs aren't particularly good, none of them are cringe worthy like plenty of Ocean/Final Bout/Blue Water GT dubbed characters."

I already said this on Android's 17 page but... the Big Green voice actor is very bad, congrats Skip you're okay but you're generic and don't fit the character but you're moving up one spot
Matthew is good but generic, Eric is less generic than the others but kinda scratchy, Alistair was also kinda generic but less so than Skip and Matthew(and call me bias but he sounded kinda like Trunks' japanese voice actor as well)

@Dante469
That would be Scott F./KaiserNeko, and he does a good job, as do the rest of the TFS cast, but they're not the actual English VAs for the characters, if that makes sense (I love their VA work, though, don't get me wrong).

See, the problem I've found with Matthew Erickson is with good direction, he can be good, like with his voice for Shinn Asuka and the time he was Kai Shiden. However, times where the voice direction isn't so good, i.e. Zeta Gundam or this Trunks gig here, he's pretty awful.

Eric Vale's Z-Trunks voice was indeed some of the original dub's best work. I've never heard a moment where he lacked emotion when needed.

His Kai voice on the other hand isnt bad at all but I think he got a bit too gruff now with it. Like he has a sore throat ALL the time; where as it was rare in his Z work. I think they were trying to make him sound more like "vegeta's son" in his voice but it just sounds forced like that. In Kai he sounds like a pubecent delinquient.

I liked his Z voice better where it was lighter, calmer and polite. Because thats how trunks is described to be.

@MicroPhoneBass Weirdly enough, I prefer his rougher voice in Kai to the one in Z. Though that's quite possibly because the voice direction and English translation/scriptwriting have improved so much since the original dub that I can ignore that one possible flaw for how amazing everything else about Vale's performance in Kai is.

1. Eric Vale - A perfect fit for Trunks. Sounds a bit like Reese from "The Terminator", which fits in so many ways.
2. Skip Stellrecht - Just sounds like a younger Might Guy there, but under better direction, he could have been something more.
3. Matthew Erickson - The voice is good, but the performance makes him sound more like Krillin than Trunks!
4. Alistair Abbell - Sorry, but I thought he was a HORRENDOUS Trunks. Easily one of THE worst performances in the Ocean Dub.

Eric Vale is the best. He's still too rough sounding at times, but he fits the character the best of the four actors here. He has improved his delivery notably over the years and that shows in DBZ Kai's dub.

In second is surprisingly Alistair Abell. I'm not a fan of this voice (probably one of the worst voices ever in the Ocean Dub) but he got a heck of a lot better as the Ocean Dub progressed and became decent in his own right in his final few appearances as the character.

Third is Skip Stellrecht. He sounds just like Might Guy here, but the voice still somewhat fits Trunks.

Lastly is Matt Erickson. His voice is surprisingly close to Eric Vale's, but his delivery is awful, and he's my least favorite from this group.

@ConfusedPhantom It actually does make sense for Trunks to have a rough. The original King Vegeta's voice was very deep and throaty, his son's voice was still pretty deep, but less throaty and more rough. So now his son Trunks has a voice that's rough, but not all that deep. Whatever, it's your opinion, think what you want.

Eric will always be Trunks to me. His lines felt memorable and he put a lot of feelings into his performance. I really hate Alistair Abell's Trunks it feels too forced, and most the time pretty flat. I will admit the clip one this site however was one of his better lines.